


The Harp

by NebulousMistress



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Gen, Horror, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Halloween 2012.</p><p>The harp is such a delicate instrument...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Harp

**Author's Note:**

> I am terrified of spiders, particularly their webs. It doesn't stop me from doing things like this...

Danny crept through the darkened mansion, lured by the sound of a harp. At least it sort of sounded like a harp. There was an ethereal quality that drew him, that called to him. Something was different about this. Something strange. It tickled his ghost sense in a way he'd never felt before. Made everything seem more real somehow. More real than reality. He knew that didn't make any sense but he couldn't describe it in any other way.

The music seemed to be coming from this way. He turned down a darkened corridor. Creepy tapestries hung from the walls, some shredded by time and probably more. There were no windows and the lights weren't working. A faint green glow shining from under the door ahead was the only light to be found.

The only sign that there was something here.

The plucking of the harp grew stronger as Danny neared that door. A mournful meandering tune coalesced from the plucking of strings, weaving in and out of nowhere before fading back into what sounded like random notes. Danny reached the door and pushed it open.

It might once have been a small library. A fireplace sat cold and quiet, wind gently howling down the chimney. Chairs sat scattered about the room. The walls were shelved with old dusty books and what might be a painting hung over the mantlepiece.

But what caught Danny's eye most were the spider webs. The entire room was conquered by green glowing webs. Sheets of webbing hid the painting from view, draped over the bookshelves, dangled from the chandelier. Great thick strings of web anchored chairs to the floor, stretched out to walls and ceiling and floor. The webs themselves seemed to provide the only light.

"I was wondering if you'd ever show up," said a voice.

Danny turned his attention to the man in the center of the room. Vlad.

Vlad appeared to be tied to a chair, thick strings of web binding him in place. His suit jacket was missing; in its place a corset of webbing was tied tight around his torso and anchored to the chair. His legs were bound together as well, cocooning him. A great orb web was stretched in front of him, anchored in place via his shoulder, his foot, the floor, and up to the ceiling. His arms were unbound, his wrists draped in thin strands of webs that gently waved as his fingers moved. The legs of a giant spider draped themselves around his neck from behind, moving in time with the music.

It was Vlad's hands that played that haunting music, plucking strands of the spider's web to coax from it the sounds of the harp.

"What the hell?" Danny whispered.

"Get me out of here," Vlad said, perfectly calm. "But don't you dare touch any of the webbing."

"Yeah, right." Danny looked around, trying to figure out what, if anything, he was going to do. Vlad's fingers slowed in their playing until the spider's dripping maw appeared behind him and stabbed fangs into Vlad's neck. Danny pulled back in disgust as he heard the tiny shrieking gasp wrenched from Vlad's throat before he started playing again, this time much faster. The spider pulled back to listen, leaving two angry fang-pricks in Vlad's neck.

Danny made a decision then. He grabbed the thread he thought must be the anchor.

"Daniel, NO!"

Everything went dark.

*****

"I blame you."

Vlad sighed. "Of course you do, Daniel. You only grabbed the biggest, thickest guy line you could after I expressly told you not to touch any of it."

"Well how else was I supposed to get you out?"

"And how will you get out?"

Danny glared at Vlad. It was all he could do. He was bound to a chair with glowing green webbing that seemed to sap his will, his ghost powers, his strength. A spider the size of a cat was spinning an orb web right in front of him, including sticking an anchor point to his cheek. At least his arms were free although he couldn't seem to find the will to lift them.

Wait a minute...

The spider in front of him finished and crawled over him to cling to the back of his chair.

"Well, Daniel, remember you brought this upon yourself," Vlad said. He raised his hands up to his orb web. "This is how you play the orb harp. I have no doubt that you will learn to play and play well. I'm sure the spiders will be perfectly happy with biting you until you do."

Danny sighed and glared at Vlad. He yelped when he felt a stabbing pain in his neck.

This was going to be a long, long night.


	2. Plucked Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after rescue, the damage is still done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the things one can do with ectoplasm.

"If I don't practice she's going to bite me."

"I know, Daniel."

"So why do you get to practice and I don't?"

"Because, my dear boy, I spun this myself."

"Hmmph."

"Oh don't give me that. You can weave your own. Rub your hands together, yes, just like that. Feels slick, doesn't it. That's your ectoplasm. A little more, let it come out, yes, good boy."

"And now I have a handful of goo. Oh goody."

"Don't be facetious, Daniel. Now stretch it out into strands. Thinner than that. No, thinner. You're spinning a web, not weaving a rope."

"This is hard."

"Well it's not supposed to be easy. That looks thin enough. Now then, next you're going to anchor the guy lines."

*****

"So tell me again what happened."

Maddie took a deep breath. She and Jack had already told this story three times. Once to the cops, once to the newspaper, once to the admitting doctors. Now this guy, this Dr. Johnson was taking over Danny's treatment. Jack had long since wandered off to the cafeteria, more interested in finding donuts than saying the same thing over and over again. She began to tell the story.

"Our son Danny was missing," she said. "He hadn't come home for two nights and we were worried. We'd already filed with the police but if this was a ghost issue then Jack and I were the only ones who could do anything about it. We drove around town looking for any ecto-disturbances that might give us a lead. We found such a disturbance at Vlad's place. Now, Vlad Masters is a friend of my husband's so he figured we could just walk in. So we did.

"It was really weird. The place seemed almost abandoned. There were spider webs everywhere and the whole place registered near the top of our scale. It was like Vlad's whole mansion is under the influence of a large long-term haunting. We went up to the second floor and that's when we heard it. Harp music. It sounded like two harps but not quite harps. I... can't describe it. Anyway, we followed the sound to this rundown section that looked like nobody had been there for years. The spider webs were massive and oppressive and there were a couple of points where we had to shoot through them to get down the hallway.

"And then we got to the room. Our equipment showed a disturbance well off the scale and we use a pretty high scale. But the room was full of glowing green webs that just hung off of everything. And in the middle, there they were."

"Tied to chairs playing spider webs as harps," Dr. Johnson said.

"Exactly," Maddie said. "I know it sounds crazy and, let me tell you it looked crazy, but that's what was happening. They were almost completely draped in webs and didn't seem to care. All around them there were these huge spiders, like the size of cats and dogs and one had to be the size of a small horse. Both of them had these horrid bite marks on their necks and all down their arms and... Ugh."

She shuddered at the memory. She'd never forget the sight of her son bound to a chair, huge spider legs draped over his shoulders as that... creature skittered over him. His hands playing an orb web like a harp, a harp attached to his face, his chest, his feet. But the worst part of it was his eyes. Green glowing eyes that looked at her in dazed confusion. It was almost as terrifying as Vlad's own red-glowing stare. They were both so exhausted. There was no telling how long they'd been trapped in there, bitten who knows how many times, just sitting there playing in that nightmare...

She hated spiders.

*****

"How's that look?"

"Decent. But you have it anchored to me."

"Oh! Um... oops?"

"Wipe that grin off your face, Daniel. Now you need to place the spokes."

"Okay..."

"Spin more strands, you're going to need it. Yes, just like that. Now then, you're going to cross the spokes a little offset from the middle."

"Offset? Why?"

"You play right-handed. You want to offset it a little close to your edge so the broadest part of the spiral sits under your hand while you play."

"OH! I didn't even notice that. But then why is yours offset to the top?"

"I play left-handed, Daniel. Don't crowd the spokes so close together. You want them to have some space between them. And don't place them so regularly. Look at mine. You see how they're fanned a little bit?"

"Hmm."

"You're getting frustrated, Daniel."

"I know that!"

"Shh. Calm down. This is your first try, it doesn't have to be perfect. Here. Take down the spokes and try again."

"Rrrrr."

"Shhhh. Here. Let me play for you. Just listen for a few minutes. Don't think so hard while you're weaving. It isn't a science, it's an art."

"You play so pretty."

"Why thank you, Daniel."

*****

Jack came back with two cups of coffee. He handed one to Maddie, her grateful gaze all the thanks he needed.

Dr. Johnson looked at his charts and nodded. Now that he knew the circumstances between both patient's exposure these test results made a little more sense. "Could these spiders have been venomous?" he asked.

"Possibly," Jack said. "Why, is something wrong?"

"Now it's nothing to be alarmed about just yet," Dr. Johnson said. "There's been no sign or symptom of anything out of the ordinary. But both your son and your friend had a strange chemical contamination in their blood. We haven't yet been able to identify it."

Maddie shoved her cup of coffee back at Jack and snatched the chart from the doctor. He let her have it, continuing to summarize from what he'd read earlier. "We put Mr. Masters through eight hours of dialysis to see if we could filter any of it out but the chemical concentrations weren't affected. I'm wondering if perhaps the spiders might have been venomous."

Jack looked over his shoulder at the chart, idly sipping Maddie's coffee. He didn't understand half of what was on that chart. Except all the lines marked "normal", he figured that out pretty well. Then there was that one line labeled "unknown" and a bunch of numbers next to it. He recognized the units. "Are you sure spiders could be the cause of that much contamination?" he asked.

"What else would it be?" Dr. Johnson asked. "The two patients lead very different lives. They are exposed to different things over the course of the day. Aside from occasional interactions they have entirely different exposure profiles."

"Where is Vlad?" Jack asked. "Maybe we could talk to him."

Dr. Johnson looked very uncomfortable.

*****

"Much better, Daniel."

"It's easier to focus when you play. It's too quiet without it."

"I know. Now you can start on the spiral. Start at your center. Anchor your web a little outward of the center. No, you're going to need more than that. Spin some more, that's it. One long single strand. Good. Now you play right-handed so you're going to have to spin right-handed. Yes, hold the strand in your right hand and wrap it around. Good. Remember to anchor it to every single spoke as you wrap around."

"Ugh, all of them?"

"All of them. Yes it's a lot of work but think of how good it'll feel to be able to practice."

*****

"What do you mean 'he's in the psyche ward'?" Jack demanded,

Dr. Johnson backed away a step, still thoroughly uncomfortable. "I-I found it in his patient records," he said. He took a breath before continuing. "Twenty years ago he spent several years in and out of psychiatric hospitals for a variety of problems stemming from a severe case of Cotard's Delusion."

"What?" Jack asked.

"He thinks he's dead, honey," Maddie said.

"There is no indication that he ever recovered from this delusion," Dr. Johnson continued. "In fact all of the notes from his psychiatric stays detail a very disturbed man who constantly and consistently considered himself 'half-dead' and begged his caregivers at every opportunity to let him finish the job. His records clearly state he must be considered a suicide risk whenever and wherever he receives treatment."

Jack felt ill. Twenty years ago would have put the beginning of all that at about the time of the proto-portal accident.

_Paging Dr. Johnson..._ The announcement came over the hospital's PA system. Dr. Johnson excused himself and headed to the nurse's station.

"Twenty years ago," Jack said. "Maddie, I think we did that to him."

"Forget that, Jack," Maddie said. "Our son is more important. What about this spider venom in his blood? What could it do to him? After all, this was a ghost spider. You saw Danny's eyes. They were glowing."

"They weren't glowing after we got them out of there," Jack said, letting her lead his thoughts. "In fact Danny's been looking really good since we got him here. A little antsy but I would be too in a hospital bed. He's been here for a week. He just wants to go home."

"Yeah, you're right," Maddie mused. "If they haven't shown signs by now then I doubt they will."

Dr. Johnson came back, a spooked look on his face. "Harp music in the psyche ward," he said.

*****

The haunting sound of twin harps drifted down the hallway, taunting the ears of those listening. Jack and Maddie followed Dr. Johnson to a locked room with a small window. Jack's heart dropped into his stomach at what that door meant while Maddie took a breath to steady herself.

"No one else should be in here," Dr. Johnson said. "This door doesn't open from the inside. It's kept locked."

"What if there's a problem inside?" Maddie asked.

"We have monitors set up that tell us what we need to know."

"And if Vlad were to shut down those monitors?"

Dr. Johnson paused, focusing on getting his keys out of his pocket. "Vlad Masters is strapped down," he finally admitted.

"What?!" Jack demanded.

"He's escaped psychiatric care before," Dr. Johnson defended. "We couldn't take that chance. And with his history there's no telling what he might do to himself." He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Three people froze at the sight before them, fear tracing down each of their spines. The leather straps on the bed were undamaged, still fastened but restraining nothing. Vlad sat on the bed wearing the white scrubs of a mental patient. His unbound hands idly played with the pink-tinged orb web that stretched before him, anchored to the floor, ceiling, and bed. He looked on at the person next to him with adoring fondness.

Danny sat next to him, his light blue scrubs hanging from his small frame. His brow was knit with concentration as he played the green-tinged orb web in front of him, anchored to the bed, the floor, and to Vlad's shoulder and neck.

"Oh my god," Maddie whispered.

The noise seemed to distract Danny and he put his hand through a section of the orb. He sighed, leaning into a comforting arm wrapped around his shoulders. Danny looked up at Vlad, seeking approval, before noticing the people at the door. "Hi Mom, hi Dad," he said.

"What... are you doing?" Jack asked.

"I need to practice or she'll bite me," Danny said as though it was the most natural statement in the world. Jack and Maddie watched in horror as Danny brought his hands together and rubbed them. A green goo formed between them that Danny worked into a long, thin strand of web before setting to repairing the damaged orb.

"Oh I don't think you have to worry about that, Daniel," Vlad said. "You're doing so well. She'll be so proud of you. Just like I am."

"Really?" Danny asked.

Dr. Johnson silently closed the door. Maddie looked at him before her hands went to her mouth and she stifled a sob. Jack stared at the tiny window, barely seeing the figures within. Clearly their assumption that the spider's venom wouldn't affect its victims was horribly wrong.

What would they do now?


	3. The Web

The soft strumming of a harp echoed through the hall. Maddie Fenton lay in bed, eyes wide open, earplugs set firmly in her ears. They weren't helping. The huge form of her husband slept peacefully next to her. She could see the pictures rattling on the nightstand in time with his snores. She knew the crickets outside were chirping away in the autumn heat wave. The house would be creaking and cracking as it settled down for the night.

She didn't hear any of it. The Fenton Earplugs blocked out all sounds. All sounds except one.

The plinking, the strumming, the warbling, the **sounds** of that blasted orb harp.

Ever since bringing him home from the hospital Danny had refused every test they tried to run on him to the point of refusing to come home until they promised to leave him alone. As it was he didn't seem to trust them, staying out until after curfew every night then heading upstairs to spin another damned harp and practice. Some days she didn't even see him; he'd run off to wherever before she woke up and stumble back home after she'd given up and gone to bed.

There was no denying it. Whatever had happened to him had changed him.

The music stopped. Finally that hellish, haunting music stopped. Maddie waited until she was sure it was over before getting up and pulling a plug out of her ear. The deafening roar of Jack's snoring blew her back for a moment. The other earplug came out and she crept out into the hallway. The snoring lessened in intensity as she headed down the hall to Danny's room. Just to check on him.

She gently pushed his bedroom door open. A shudder tore through her form as she took it all in.

Some features were familiar, maddeningly familiar. The computer in the corner. The backpack next to the desk, papers haphazardly stuffed in and around it. The messy bed. The half-clothed body sprawled out on top of the covers.

Some features were new. New and frightening. The cobwebs draped over every corner. The tiny eyes of lurking spiders shining in the wan light from the hallway. The sheets of webbing draped over the window, some dull gray, some glowing a sickly green. The remains of a large orb web still anchored to the walls, the bed, the doorknob. The orb itself was wrapped around her son like a net, green glowing strands crisscrossing his shoulders, his face, entrapping his arms. It was like he'd played until he passed out from exhaustion, falling right into his own web.

Maddie held back a disgusted gag and closed the door.

She wasn't going to sleep tonight. Maybe never again.

*****

Danny left the house far too early for a weekend. He snuck out as the sun rose, staying deathly quiet as he left.

Quiet as a ghost. As a spider.

Maddie watched him leave. He noticed her scrutiny but only blushed with shame for a moment before he left. She heard his footsteps running down the porch stairs and then nothing. She sighed from the kitchen and her third cup of coffee. Time to try and put some normality back into this house.

She went into the hall closet and pulled out the vacuum cleaner.

She and Jack had tried to accept their son and his new... eccentricities. They'd bought him books of music. They even bought him a harp. He tried, at first, but not for long. Not long enough to forget what those damned spiders had done to him. Now the harp sat in the corner of his bedroom, strings missing, an orb web strung up within the structure.

Maddie vacuumed it away. She put the vacuum hose through every spider web she could reach. Sheets of webbing tore away from the window like diaphanous curtains, sunlight shining in for the first time in days. Light scattered off of invisible strands of silk all over the room, turning the empty space into a maze, a cage. She swung the vacuum hose around like a weapon, slashing strands and sucking up the remains. Green-tinged webs taunted her, shining with ghostly malevolence as they were ripped off the walls and sucked into the hose.

Through it all she could feel a thousand tiny eyes glaring at her. Well Danny's little spidery friends would just have to deal with it. This was her house and so long as he lived here he would act human.

*****

"I don't want to go back there," Danny said. The soft chimes of an orb harp filled his ears, soothed his mind, pulled his tension from him. The web pulled at his neck and tickled his arm where the guy lines were anchored. Still he sat, dutifully keeping still as the harp strings were pulled by one more talented than he.

The player would have given anything to hear those words. Anything to keep the boy for his very own. "They're your parents," Vlad said, his hands gently tugging and stroking the strings, coaxing beautiful music from the web. An audience of one sat at his feet, anchored to the web. An audience of thousands lurked around them, crawling along the walls, hanging from the ceiling, draped over their necks...

"They don't understand me," Danny said. "They don't like it when I play. But I can't not play. When I don't play I feel..." He gestured a bit, his arms waving about and throwing Vlad's orb harp into chaos. Strands of the spiral collapsed against each other as Danny moved.

A quick scuttle, the brush of long legs up his spine, and the stab of sharp fangs into his neck stopped his movements. Danny collapsed against Vlad, his head laying on Vlad's knee.

Vlad sighed as he looked at his harp, its pink-tinged strands in disarray. A wave of spiders swarmed up his body to repair his harp for him. Vlad instead busied himself with his younger accompanist, running a hand through black hair. "I know how it feels," Vlad whispered. "I know how terrible it is, not knowing when you'll feel the brush of silk, the stab of fangs, the burn of venom, the scuttling of a thousand tiny legs. I know what it's like for the music to get so loud you want to scream because there's no other way to let it out."

Danny snuggled against Vlad's knee. He did miss this. He missed the throbbing burn of the venom coursing through his veins, forcing his eyes to glow, awakening every cell, every molecule of his body. He missed the swarm of spiders and the weight of the giant mother spiders draped over his neck, listening to him play, humming in his ear. The one thing he couldn't figure out, though, was why. Why did this happen to him? Why couldn't his parents just accept it?

"Why?" he asked.

Vlad smiled, his eyes shining red. They closed for a moment and he gasped as a spider the size of his hand crawled across his face and wiggled down into his collar, snuggling against his neck. "They're feeding on us," he whispered. "They feed on the music. We will need to play for them until there's no more music left in us."

Danny did not expect that sort of an answer. "What?"

A spider the size of a large cat, a mother spider, crawled up the back of Vlad's chair and draped her legs over his shoulders. She tapped him with those legs and nibbled on his ear with long pedipalps. He turned toward her and nuzzled her as she brushed those fangs against his face. "We'll never be free again, Daniel," he murmured as though professing love to a bedmate. "And when we run out of music to play we'll crave it just as they do."

Danny went tense. The itching crawl of thousands of legs didn't feel so good anymore. He pulled away from Vlad's knee, breaking hundreds of tiny strands that had bound him in place, that he hadn't even noticed were there.

"I ran out of music a long time ago," Vlad said, turning red eyes on his prey. "Oh I can play and it is beautiful but it is nothing new, nothing satisfying. There's no soul to it. There hasn't been for years."

Danny wrenched the strands of orb harp off of his neck and arm. The eyes, the thousands of tiny eyes, they all turned to him. He could feel their hunger.

"Your music, Daniel," Vlad continued. "It is so beautiful. I knew the moment I met you that your music would taste so sweet. I knew that I had to have you. I had to keep you for my very own."

Danny tried to get up but his legs were bound uncomfortably. So many spiders and all their webs crawled over him, holding him down, tying him tighter. He felt the legs of a mother grab him from behind, pulling him to the floor before fangs stabbed into his neck.

The room started to spin. Danny looked up into the glowing red eyes of Vlad, of the spiders all around them. Only then did he realize...

Vlad's eyes glowed the same color as the spiders'.

Danny felt more fangs digging into him, all sizes, all along his arms, his legs, his face. He felt himself go limp as their venom drained him of his ability to resist. He felt himself being lifted up, saw Vlad holding him, saw him smile...

Saw his fangs.

"And now you're mine," Vlad purred. He bent his head down and Danny felt one last bite to his neck before everything went black.

*****

He never came back.

Maddie spent days sitting on her son's bed. The last time she saw her son he'd snuck out without a single word to her or anyone. His room had been left in utter spidery chaos, a chaos of webs and arachnids that never did reform after her battle with the vacuum cleaner.

She looked around the room, depressed and empty. Cobwebs were collecting in the corners, so scant and so normal that she barely noticed them. The harp stood empty and unstrung in the corner, the computer and bookshelves covered in dust.

The police never found anything. The Masters estate was empty and abandoned, even the spiders were gone. She and Jack never found anything either. Not even a single strand of glowing silk.

She had to face it, they said. He was gone. They were both gone. Vlad had taken the boy and they had disappeared. A man like Vlad Masters could easily disappear. He'd done it before. She had to face it.

But they just didn't understand. No one did. No one else heard it but she did. She heard the plucking, droning notes of Danny's orb harp every time she closed her eyes.


	4. The Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The music will not be denied. It will find a way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly.
> 
> "'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy."

Months.

Ten months.

Ten months of searching, seeking, listening. Following the sounds of harp music, the plucking, strumming, droning sounds of the orb harp.

Ten months led to this.

*****

Jack found her in Danny's room again. Maddie was sitting at their son's dusty harp, stretching strings to try and put it back together. He stood next to her and put an arm around her.

Maddie shook him off. "Not now, Jack," she said, so very monotone.

He recognized that monotone. It was the same one Danny used right before he disappeared. "Maddie, please."

She shot a murderous glare at him before going back to the harp strings. "I can't get these to sound right," she said. "I need them to sound right. It hurts if they don't sound right. Jack, just go away, it hurts too much."

Jack felt utterly helpless. He had no idea what to do.

*****

The trees were gray with webs and shadows. Tiny eyes stared out at her, shining spider eyes staring unblinking from within the shadows, within the billowing webs. The narrow path was untouched, a tiny track of bare dirt the only thing in sight that wasn't crawling or shining or billowing.

The sunlight didn't filter down this far, not through the thick canopy of webbing. The flashlight's beam picked out the path, meandering past skeletal trees and around gray forms that might once have been bushes or maybe even animals. On the side of the path a still-moving lump detailed the horrific danger that lurked only a single footstep away.

She stopped at the lump and shone her flashlight at it, curiosity getting the better of her. She poked at it.

Spiders shot out from within the lump, crawling away from their meal. As they left it began to move again, pressing against the inside of its prison. She fancied she could see the outline of a hoof, hear the faintest bleating of a deer.

She stood up and shuddered. If she did this wrong that would be her fate. She could still run away. She could still leave this cursed forest and never return.

She grabbed her head and stumbled, almost falling off the path. She grunted in pain as the music grew louder, threatening to burst out of her head in any way it knew how.

No. She couldn't leave. She had to get it out. That was most important. More important than finding her son. More important than returning to her family. More important than anything. She had to get the music out of her head.

Before it drove her insane.

She continued deeper into the forest, always sticking to that path.

*****

Jazz and Jack stared at each other across the kitchen table. They wracked their brains, looking for something, some idea as to what they were going to do. So far sitting there drinking hot chocolate was the best they could come up with.

"This isn't your problem, Jazzypants," Jack said. "You have college and you need to focus on that."

"But Dad, this is Mom we're talking about? What if she disappears like Danny did?"

They heard the footsteps down the stairs. Footsteps that didn't even acknowledge them as Maddie ran out the door without a word.

"Then I hope she finds him," Jack said.

Jazz nodded, a horrible feeling of dread clutching at her belly. Tears stung her eyes as she realized that might be the last time she would ever see her mother again.

*****

The path faded into the forest floor. Maddie stood at the edge of its safe little lane. This was the point of no return. As if to tempt her she saw that some of the strands of web beyond glowed. Sickly green, translucent magenta... Colors she recognized. Colors she'd missed. Colors she so very much wanted to touch, as though touching them might release some of the music building up in her head.

She reached out, hands brushing all manner of sticky strands, trying to run her fingers along one of those glowing colors. But she was too far. Just barely too far. Only a step and she'd be able to touch it. But a step would take her off the path. She looked back at the meandering track and made a decision,

She took that step.

*****

Jack tried to get the police to understand. Yes she left. No she wasn't coerced and no she wasn't kidnapped. Yes she just left. But she was missing! They had to find her before she really disappeared like Danny had.

It was no use.

She was a grown woman. She had no history of being a danger to anyone or to herself. Jack, on the other hand...

It was her right to disappear into the night. If she was going after her missing son then that was her right, too. Given their lack of leads the police told Jack that they hoped she found the closure that the law was unable to provide.

Jazz went back to college. And Jack was alone.

*****

There was still a path to follow. She had to pull her machete out of her boot to find it but there was a distinct trail marked by a thinning of the strands that tugged her back and an increase in those glowing strands that drew her in. Every time she touched one the music in her head quieted down just a little bit, leaking out of her in a single-toned drone as she drew her fingers along the strand. It was a torturous process, like trying to quench a terrible thirst with little sips, but it was enough to draw her along. It was enough to keep her coming.

It was enough to keep her on the path until...

The ground dropped out from underneath her. The webbing covering the hole refused to hold her weight, brushing and dragging against her as she fell into darkness. She lost her grip on the flashlight, the machete, the both of them caught by the webs as she fell.

She landed on something soft, comfortable, musical. Music surrounded her, invaded her as what she landed on deformed, stretched, bounced like a trampoline. She closed her eyes and moaned as the sound enveloped her, a cacophony like being surrounded by an entire symphony.

As the symphony faded, as the bouncing stopped, she heard it. An orb harp.

"Hello Mom."

Maddie turned over, her hands sliding along the spokes of the giant orb web she'd landed on. Her eyes peered into the darkness looking for something she hoped, she knew would be there. Bright green ghostly eyes.

Danny untangled himself from his orb harp and climbed closer to his mother, close enough for her to see.

He'd changed. His hair was a long, chaotic mixture of black strands, white strands, gray and pink and green strands of web. His eyes glowed green, his skin was pale and glowed with a ghostly radiance. He'd once been Danny Fenton. He'd once been Danny Phantom. Now he was both at once, neither at the same time. Now he played music, now it played him. It kept him awake, alive, aware. Without it he felt... thirsty.

"Oh, my Danny," she said, reaching out to touch him. He was cold to the touch. He was real, so real. He was really here...

"Welcome, my dear."

Danny turned toward this new voice with an expression of quiet joy. Maddie followed his gaze to a pair of red eyes in the shadows.

"Teach me to play," she begged.

Long-fingered hands started pulling pink-tinged web. The legs of a giant spider reached out and grabbed her ankles, holding her still as those hands wrapped the pink web around her feet.

"Danny, what's going on?" she asked.

Danny crawled across the web to his mother's side, holding her arms. "Shh," he shushed. "We'll teach you to play. And then you'll feel so much better. But first you have to rest. You've been on your feet for a long, long time. Get some sleep. When you wake up we'll teach you how to play so beautifully. I promise, Mom. Just relax."

She nodded and laid back onto the orb. She trusted him. Even as those long-fingered hands cocooned her past her waist she trusted him.

And then she looked down at what was cocooning her. A pale, naked torso faded into the abdomen of a large spider like a hybrid creature. Long arms ended in clawed hands the same color as the eight long legs that stretched from the creature. Long white hair fell in a tangled mess from his head down his back. He looked up at her with familiar red eyes.

She screamed.

*****

Maddie knelt in the web, tightly cocooned from her feet to her chest. Spiders the size of dogs and cats sat around her as she played just as she'd been taught. Danny lay nearby, drinking in the music with a deliriously happy expression on his face. Next to her son lay the creature that had cocooned her, taught her, bitten her, kept her here. And yet she couldn't bring herself to hate him. Once she could have but not now.

Not now that Vlad had been the one to help her get the oppressive music out of her head.


End file.
